Edward Mortimer CMG (22 December 1943 – 18 June 2021)^[1] was a UN civil servant, journalist, author and academic. He was Distinguished Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, from 2013.^[2] From 2001 to 2006, he was the Director of Communications in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and was the chief speechwriter from 1998 to 2006.^[3] He was the chair of the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice^[4] from 2010 to 2015 and one of the key people integral to the creation of the Campaign.^[5][6]

Mortimer was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2010 New Year Honours.^[7]

Edward Mortimer was born in Burford, Oxfordshire, the son of Robert Mortimer, Regius Professor of Moral Theology at Christ Church, Oxford and later Bishop of Exeter and his wife Mary.^[8] Mortimer was a scholar at Eton College and studied history at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1962 to 1965, graduating with a congratulatory first, and was a Prize Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, from 1965 to 1972.^[3][2] In 1963, during his time at Balliol, he was part of the team that reached the final of the first series of University Challenge, losing to Leicester University.^[9]

Before university Mortimer went to Senegal to do Voluntary Service Overseas, and taught English for a short period in a lycée in St Louis. After leaving Oxford he went to Paris to do research for a PhD, but set it aside in 1967 when he was hired as a reporter in The Times Paris office. He returned to Oxford in 1970 to write a book on the French Communist Party. During his time in Paris he documented the student riots and the last days of Charles de Gaulle's presidency. Left-leaning in his politics, he later reflected that "For me, May 1968 was certainly the high point of the Sixties."^[10] He went on to become a columnist and leader writer for The Times and foreign affairs editor for the Financial Times.^[3][2] Between 2007 and 2012 he was Senior Vice President of the Salzburg Global Seminar and was a member of the Advisory Council of Independent Diplomat.

Mortimer married painter and sculptor Elizabeth Zanetti in Exeter in 1968; together they had four children.^[1][2][11] He died of cancer on 18 June 2021, aged 77.^[11][1][12]

1. France and the Africans, 1944-60: A Political History Faber & Faber, 1969.
2. Faith and Power, the politics of Islam Random House, New York, 1982.
3. Roosevelt's Children: Tomorrow's World Leaders and Their World Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 1987.
4. The World That FDR Built: Vision and Reality Scribner, 1989.